2020: The End of B2B Sales As We Know It

If you’re in B2B sales, it may feel like the world as you know it has forever changed; and you would be right. If you’re waiting for the way business is conducted to return to business as usual, you may be waiting a long time. The current phased lifting of shelter-in-place orders does not equate to a return to normalcy. Most scientists believe we will see a resurgence of the virus; they also suggest it’ll likely be 2021 before we have a fully tested and disseminated vaccine available to the masses.

So, it’s no wonder why this chaotic year, gridlocked by COVID, has changed the way people behave and conduct business in some fundamental and, likely, lasting ways. While there was already a growing preference for digital over in-person events and communication, that desire will grow exponentially over the coming year. The ability to grow in spite of market chaos will separate the most capable leaders from the pack when the economy rebounds.

This is serious business. Outbound sales strategies, as we know them, must shift notably or your brand will be left behind and your sales staff may be out of jobs. The brands that move quickly to adapt despite the new social-distancing norm will ultimately grow market share and win customer loyalty.

In fact, 14% of companies were able to not only accelerate growth but also increase profitability during the past four recessions, according to a 2019 BCG study. There were three trends that these companies had in common. They acted early, took a long-term perspective, and focused on growth versus just cutting costs.

Think about sales and marketing as being counter-cyclical to the economy. These are the levers you pull to generate a stronger, quicker recovery and to take market share. Now, perhaps more than ever, these two disciplines must be aligned to the extent that it’s difficult to see where marketing ends and sales begins if you are going to breakthrough in this heightened digital age.

So when it comes to this particular economic crisis, what are the sales strategies that are breaking through? Here is a shortlist, as well as a few marketing strategies that greatly impact a prospect’s sales experience.

Understand the Digital Awakening:

There’s been a digital awakening among buyers or a heightened expectation for an extraordinary digital experience. Buyers seek an assortment of content and resources about your brand through a variety of delivery channels. In other words, they expect as much content as they want, when they want it, and in the format, they want it or content consumption on their terms. They also expect to see this content somewhat tailored for them — at least to their industry vertical and/or role. It’s a mistake to lean on your marketing team exclusively for this content, as no one knows your customers and prospects as well as your sales team. Lean on your sales team to ideate content topics and vet the content that marketing produces through a prospect lens.

Invest in the User Experience:

B2B companies are increasingly investing in their customers’ online experience, also called user experience or UX for short. In fact, they are outspending B2C companies at the moment which is a new trend. Investing in UX goes far beyond just ensuring that your website is mobile friendly. That’s the cost of entry. You must also understand your users’ online journey with your brand so that you can deliver the right content at the right time. There are numerous applications that can provide you with deep website analytics to assist in delivering an optimum user experience — such as heat mapping which shows you the average user’s mouse movements across each page of your website, as well as the order and speed of those movements. These insights allow you to assess whether you’re wisely using your website’s most valuable real estate.

Revitalize Email Campaigns:

Spice up your sales emails with something unexpected so that you stand out in the crowded inbox of your prospects. For example, consider using one-to-one prospecting videos. If, after five days of sending a batch of personalized videos to prospects by email, several still haven’t opened them, change the subject line and resend the emails to see which subject line performed best. It’s great learning for your next batch of emails.

• Digitize Account-Based Marketing Outreach:

Account-based marketing is a more strategic form of lead generation where you are focused on growing business from highly targeted prospective companies that look a lot like your best customers. It’s about targeting more than one prospect within each targeted company and doing so in such an innovative and personalized way that you shake them up and make them take notice. It’s a clear path to improving close rates, shortening the sales cycle and reducing the cost of customer acquisition, and it ought to be where most B2B sales teams are spending their energy. Now, more than ever, the companies that do this best will emerge as the winners, as they will gain the ear of their prospects and become the vendor of choice when budgets free up.

Behind every account is still a person, and during this time of uncertainty, we have to appeal to the human-to-human connection. Account-based marketing isn’t just about targeting the company, but the individual people who are working from home and blending their work and home identity for that company. What are that person’s frustrations and pain points at the moment? How can they be seen and acknowledged as people?

Watch Competitors Closely:

In times like this, your sales team must be prepared to pivot on a dime based on both the needs of your market and the actions of your competitors.

There are several digital platforms that allow you to easily stay tuned into what your competition is up to. These platforms will automatically capture vital information on your competitors such as:

?  their latest social-media posts,

?  trends in their website and social content over time,

?  the demographics of their social-media following,

?  their Google Ads keywords, estimated budget and ad copy,

?  consumer sentiment about their brands,

?  tech used on their websites,

?  the pricing and inventory availability of the products on their e-commerce platforms,

?  and the content, frequency, and timing of their email campaigns.

So, Is this the new norm?  

In summary yes! It has been for years, many companies just were reluctant and weren′t forced to adapt until now. What may have been in the 5-year plan for many Sales Teams, has been sped up to what seems like lightspeed. Organizations have been forced to ready their teams over the last 5-10 months. But what about outbound sales? Was marketing ready? We can′t put boots on the street. How do we reach our ideal clients? 

Welcome to the new norm of B2B Digital Sales! Would you like new sales on autopilot?  

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